Repurposing and Remembering

I have several friends who talk about Pinterest incessantly. Thus far I had successfully fought the urge to investigate the website for fear of developing yet another form of electronic addiction. A few nights ago, after tossing and turning for hours, waiting for Mr. Sandman to make his appearance, I finally threw in the proverbial towel and checked it out. As I feared, a new addiction has come to rise. So many DIY project ideas, recipes, and household cleaning tips I had never heard of! I spent hours upon hours "pinning" things into folders and felt those creative juices start to flow once again.

 

In the spirit of finding some peace after a disheartening day, I found myself elbow deep with three projects. Mind you, these are nothing extremely time consuming or requiring a lot of creative talent, ... but I was pretty impressed with the final results. Especially since the total cost was less than $5.00 for all three. The first two are below.

 

A make-up jar is born:

 

I started with a scrap piece of burlap material and a sauce jar. After attaching the burlap on the glass I had to decide what ribbon I wanted to use... That was tough!!! Inevitably, I chose my favorite shade of blue. After tying the bow I attached it directly to the burlap. Final result.... a cute make-up brush canister. Short and simple. All from random scraps and a sauce jar from tonight's menu.

A jewelry holder is born:

I inherited a few tea cups and saucers from my grandmother in the mid-1970's. Over the years the cups were chipped or outright broken, but I wanted to preserve the remaining pieces in some sort of way for sentimental purposes.  The full set was purchased overseas during the war by my grandfather and sent home to his wife, then pregnant with the second of their seven children.  This grandfather passed before I was born and my grandmother passed when I was very young, so these are historical items to me. The candlestick was a gift to me at my own wedding in 2004. It seemed like the perfect thing to use as a post. I am pretty impressed with the end product. It is personal, feminine, and useful.., but most importantly, it salvages a small piece of my family tree into an item I will appreciate every day.